Filed under: Denver Post
In the newspaper game, being a polarizing figure is about as good as it gets. Having people love you and love to hate you means that just about everyone is reading you. And at the end of the day, that is what drives newspaper subscriptions. Which is why I was sad to see columnist Tina Griego today join past lightning rods Penny Parker and Mike Littwin as the most recent Denver Post staff members to leave the paper.
So how long can the Denver Post survive while jettisoning its most interesting, engaging, loved and hated personalities? Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to find out.
Filed under: Denver Post
The Denver Post takes a pretty damn rosy view of its circulation numbers for a paper about to lay off two-thirds of its copyediting staff. The Post’s own 14-paragraph article reports the changes in the paper’s website hits, its online e-version, and its Facebook and Twitter followers, bit conspicuously absent are any numbers about the paper’s print circulation change. And given that advertisers typically pay a newspaper’s bills, that is an ominous sign.
The paper reported 250,200 print subscribers for the period ending March 31, which appears to be about a 25 percent drop from a year ago. But it also reported 150,000 digital subscribers. As usual, I’m waiting for Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal or Michael Roberts at Westword to connect to connect the dots.
Filed under: Denver Post
Denver Post business/gossip columnist Penny Parker confirmed via Twitter that she was laid off yesterday, and rumors have columnist Mike Littwin also on the chopping block. Michael Roberts at Westword has some of the details.
Filed under: Boulder Daily Camera, Denver Business Journal, Denver Post, Jobs, Longmont Times-Call, MediaNews Group
Denver Post publisher MediaNews Group is laying off 17 employees as part of an outsourcing strategy, according to the Denver Business Journal. The employees are part of MediaNews’ Prairie Mountain Publishing Co. division that publishes the Boulder Daily Camera and Longmont Times-Call. The 17 positions are mostly advertising design and production positions that apparently will be moved off-shore to India and the Philippines.
Print circulation at The Denver Post continues to fall, and web traffic continues to increase, according to the Denver Business Journal. The specifics:
- Average weekday print circulation at the Post is down nearly 7 percent from the same period the prior year
- Saturday print circulation is down more than 10 percent from the prior year
- Sunday print circulation is down more than 5 percent from the prior year
- Web traffic is up 9 percent from the prior year
Denver Post sports columnist Dave Krieger is leaving to join 850 KOA’s afternoon sports show. Krieger was one of a handful of Rocky Mountain News staffers who were picked up by the Post after the Rocky folded.
Filed under: Denver Post
The fallout continues over at the Denver Post following last week’s news about 19 staffers accepting buyout offers. Today, Michael Roberts at Westword reports that the Post has announced internally a number of new assignments, and one surprising one is that Steve McMillan is out as business editor, replaced by deputy business editor Kristi Arellano. You can read the rest of the changes at Westword’s “Latest Word” blog.
Filed under: Denver Post
The list of Denver Post employees who have accepted the paper’s buyout offer has started to trickle out is out:
- Religion reporter (and obituary specialist) Virginia Culver
- Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Mike Keefe
- Gossip columnist Bill Husted
- Managing editor Jeanette Chavez
- Theater critic John Moore
- Fina arts critic Kyle MacMillan
- Librarian Jan Torpy
- Don Russell
- Lifestyles reporter Sheba Wheeler
- Sportswriter Natalie Meisler
- Senior editorial assistant Pete Names
- Designer Jackie Feldman
- Information graphic designer Jonathan Moreno
- Copy desk chief Joe Hudson
- Robert Smith
- Feature design director Jim Carr
- Denver Newspaper Agency (reprints) Joyce Anderson
- Photographer John Prieto
-
Reporter Jeff Leib
Update II: Michael Roberts at Westword has the complete list of the 19 staffers who are leaving, and offers some perspective on what their departures might mean for the Post.
Filed under: Denver Post
Denver Post editorial page editor Curtis Hubbard offers his farewell to Mike Keefe, the Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist who, after 36 years and more than 8,000 cartoons with the paper, accepted a buyout.
The Denver Post has crunched the (Arizona Republic’s) numbers, and only Austin, Texas, ranks better than Denver among peer cities when it comes to economic indicators. So if you feel like we are in a recession, it must be your imagination.
One of the sad realities of newspapers continually cutting back the column inches they publish every day is the loss of some of the traditional services they provided, including obituaries. Many of you may know Don Shook, who prior to moving to Las Vegas spent 27 years in Denver with Channel 4, Coors and the Jeffco Sheriff’s Office. His wife, Maggie, passed away last month and Don was shocked to find that the Post wanted $1,600 to publish her obituary. Don fired off the letter below to the Post, but has yet to see it published or receive a response.
Dear Editor:
My wife of 37 years just got her dying wish, thanks to The Denver Post. Maggie passed away last week in our Las Vegas home after many years of pain and suffering. She made it absolutely clear that she wanted NO obituary notices; however, after 25 years of living in Golden, I was willing to risk her wrath on “the other shore” to share news of her passing with our considerable number of friends along the Front Range. She will indeed get her wish regarding your newspaper.
I built a modest obituary into the paper’s template, along with a recent photo that captures her nicely. To run it three days would be just under $1,600. Does The Denver Post expect me to singlehandedly save the organization from financial doom? With the recent news of yet morestaff reductions being sought, is the newspaper hoping to stave off closure of its daily publication by capitalizing on people at such a moment of profound grief?
Given your apparent lack of feeling for the community you purport to serve, perhaps the time may come when we all read of the Post’s own obituary. For the sake of your many fine employees, I hope not.
Donald Shook
There will be a memorial for Maggie next summer in Golden. If you are interested in reconnecting with Don, you can reach him through his PR firm in Las Vegas.
It looks like the Denver Business Journal is getting a little competition in the awards department – the Denver Post has partnered with WorkplaceDynamics for the 2012 Top Workplaces Award. Nominations are due October 28. According to Denver Post Business Editor Steve McMillan:
“The Denver area has a dynamic business environment with companies that have great stories to tell. We look forward to highlighting the metro area’s top employers and how they foster employee satisfaction.”
Pulitzer Prize winner and former Denver Post editor Gil Spencer passed away Friday. He was 85.
I don’t know newly elected Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and I don’t know whether the allegations of his involvement with prostitutes are true. But I do know this: if the Rocky Mountain News were still here, we would have gotten to the bottom of the story much faster. I love the Denver Post, but I love a Denver Post being pushed by a competing Rocky Mountain News even more.
Filed under: Denver Post
“(Colorado) Springs boy finds pet chickens mutilated.” Welcome to Mayberry.
Filed under: Denver Post
MediaNews Group’s William Dean Singleton announced he will step down as CEO but remain as executive chairman. MediaNews Group owns dozens of newspapers, including the Denver Post.
Filed under: Denver Post
Courtesy of this morning’s Denver Post (Nation & World Briefs, Page 4A):
“Republicans immediately disparaged the analysis as ‘public relations’.”
Filed under: Denver Post
SE2 has unceremoniously (or maybe ceremoniously – it’s hard to tell) deflowered the Denver Post’s editorial section.
Filed under: Denver Post
In honor of Penny Parker, here is the Denver PR Blog “Eavesdropping” bit of the week:
“Be prepared for a constant barrage of flip remarks and undying skepticism. We’ll all wonder why we even considered running this gauntlet. And our clients will ask – ‘What were you thinking?’ ”
– An anonymous pro-business Denver PR practitioner discussing Denver Post columnist Mike Littwin’s appointment to the paper’s editorial board.
Filed under: Denver Post
Congratulations to University of Colorado Hospital CEO (and Dovetail Solutions client) Bruce Schroffel, who was named the Denver Post’s 2010 Business Person of the Year.
A slew of Colorado Newspapers – the Denver Post, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Greeley Tribune and the Boulder Daily Camera among them – are accusing the political website ColoradoPols.com of “flagrant and persistent theft … of intellectual property.” Frankly, I was surprised that the Denver Post generates enough of its own content to make this complaint. If ColoradoPols was effectively reprinting content from the Post, I figured it would be the Associated Press that would have an issue.
The bad news for newspapers continues. The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reports that domestic weekday newspaper circulation fell 8.7 percent over the past six months. Meanwhile, here in Colorado, the Denver Post reported a 10.2 percent weekday circulation decline over a year ago, which now puts it as the nation’s 14th largest newspaper in terms of weekday circulation.
Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post has seen the future of Denver television news, and it does not include co-anchors such as Karen Leigh, Libby Weaver and Mark Koebrich. Instead, expect more of the 20-20-20 rule: “Hire 20-year-olds, pay them $20,000 a year and have them work 20-hour days.”
Congratulations to Denver Post photographer Craig Walker for his Pulitzer Prize for photography. Walker was recognized for his series, “Ian Fisher: American Soldier” that chronicled 27 months in the life of soldier Ian Fisher.
JohnstonWells was among several companies the Denver Post profiled today who use technology to help employees stay productive during snow days.
I have been tough on Denver Post business reporter Aldo Svaldi in the past for what must be the toughest job in town – reporting on the financials of your own paper. But today Svaldi deserves congratulations for his Society of American Business Editors and Writers award for best investigative project for large publications. Svaldi, along with colleague Miles Moffeit, won for their story investigating how state and federal regulator mistakes allowed Greeley’s New Frontier Bank to fail.
Filed under: Denver Post
I’m all for ginning up some controversy, but the Denver Post copyeditor responsible for that headline may be trying a little too hard. How did Qwest CEO Ed Mueller actually respond when asked about whether he had sold his house in Denver:
“I think (the question is) irrelevant and … I think it’s offensive.”
Maybe the Post should send a reporter to New York to cover Alec Baldwin for a couple of weeks to get a little perspective.
Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post assembled her annual Denver advertising industry panel to evaluate the creativity, originality and effectiveness of the Super Bowl ads. Meanwhile, the Denver Egotist was not impressed with what he she they it saw.
Filed under: Denver Post, Journalism Moves, Penny Parker, Rocky Mountain News
Former Rocky Mountain News editor John Temple will relocate to Hawaii after accepting the position as editor of Peer News, “a Honolulu-based local news service that will produce original, in-depth reporting and analysis of local issues in Hawaii.” Expect a “John Temple gets lei’d” joke in Penny Parker’s Denver Post column tomorrow.
Filed under: Denver Business Journal, Denver Newspaper Agency, Denver Post, MediaNews Group, Newspapers
Of course, that is not exactly how Aldo Svaldi’s Denver Post article this morning described it. Before running across the word “bankruptcy” for the first time in the third paragraph, it was described as a “pact,” “deal,” “new ownership structure,” “restructuring plan” and “agreement.” Clearly there is no need to buy Svaldi a thesaurus for his birthday this year.
Of the bankruptcy agreement, Media News chairman and chief executive William Dean Singleton said, ”It gives us one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry.” Sadly, he may be right.
If you are interested, the Denver Business Journal also covered the Post’s bankruptcy agreement.
The Denver Post is touting its strong circulation figures in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation report, while Westword’s Michael Roberts digs beneath the surface to see whether the numbers are as strong as the Post claims.
On the heels of Denver Magazine’s controversial cover shot of Fox31 anchors Libby Weaver and Natalie Tysdal, the Denver Post profiles the magazine’s CEO, publisher and editor Michael Ledwitz.
Denver Magazine has scored this week’s PR Win of the Week. Magazine covers are all about capturing attention, and Denver Magazine’s cover shot of Fox31 anchors Libby Weaver and Natalie Tysdal has been the talk of the town this week. Westword offers Photoshopped versions of the cover featuring various Denver duos, and Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post even weighed in on it this morning.
Filed under: Denver Post
When I first started work at US West (or U S WEST as they required us to write it at the time), I had a co-worker who constantly complained about the office temperature being too hot. He would occasionally adjust the wall-mounted thermostat near our cubicles, but most of the time he would find it already set to the lowest temperature (from the last time he visited it).
One day, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about how offices were placing decoy thermostats that could be “controlled” by employees. The thermostats weren’t connected to anything, but they created the illusion that employees could control their environment. I showed the article to my co-worker, who immediately got up from his desk, walked over to the thermostat, pulled off one of his cowboy boots and knocked the thermostat off the wall. It was a decoy. There wasn’t even a hole in the drywall behind it – it had just been glued on.
I was reminded of that story this morning when I saw the Denver Post’s annual Comics Poll, where readers can list their most liked and most hated comic strips in an attempt to influence which comics the Post keeps. As a subscriber, the Post has my address and my phone number. If it wants a statistically valid sampling of which comics are desired and which aren’t by readers, it could do that. But it would rather create a way for all the cranks who bitch and moan about the comics to think their voices are being heard.
Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post throws a little love at the highly regarded yet lowly rated KMGH/Channel 7 news team:
“Despite having a newsroom staff 20 percent smaller than that of Channel 4 and Channel 9, and having notably less marketing muscle, Channel 7 has emerged as the station to beat in terms of content and quality.”
If you were in Denver in the late 1990s, you likely remember the train wreck that was Jamie White of Alice 105.9′s “Frosty, Frank & Jamie” morning show. So although it is not that surprising to learn that White has been charged with a felony, it is somewhat surprising that it took a decade to finally happen. Bill Husted at the Denver Post has the details.
If the Denver Post is planning for local sports coverage to be the silver bullet that retains subscribers, then this has to be a scary thought.
Meteorologist Chris Dunn and reporters Audra Ensign and Charlie Brennan were among six laid off at KDVR/Fox31 yesterday. Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post has the details.
Filed under: Denver Post
The Denver Post announced this morning that it will increase the cost of newsstand copies to 75 cents, which translates to a little more than 37 cents per business page on Mondays.
Who says Denver media doesn’t cover the local public relations scene? Denver Post gossip columnist business columnist Penny Parker offers an in-depth review of the bathrooms at SE2/Eric Sondermann’s new office. I smell Pulitzer!
Bill Husted catches up with elusive Denver Post editor Greg Moore as part of his recurring “Bar & Grilled” column. Normally I wouldn’t be that impressed with a columnist scoring an interview with his own editor, but when was the last time you saw Greg Moore in public? Husted should enjoy this one for now, because I fully expect Penny Parker to up the ante with an exclusive with publisher Dean Singleton any time now.
Maybe the Denver Post’s wire-heavy, two-page business section is more out of necessity than choice. In the past two weeks, two Post business reporters have announced their departures, and neither is being replaced. First up was energy reporter Gargi Chakrabarty, who announced she was leaving to join her husband in Boston. And now word comes that business reporter Elizabeth Aguilera will be leaving to accept a fellowship at USC (the good one).
Filed under: Denver Post
Maybe the Denver Post should have splurged and brought over a Rocky copyeditor or two …
Fresh off the success of InDenver Times, MediaNews CEO and Denver Post publisher William Dean Singleton told his employees that the company “cannot continue to give all of our content away for free,” and that the company will stop offering free online access to its 53 daily newspapers and will instead develop an online subscription model. Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal has the details.
Filed under: Denver Post
Now that it isn’t engaged in a circulation war, the Denver Post has decided to drop delivery to “outlying” areas of Colorado, which it defines as ”far western, southern and eastern parts of Colorado” such as Grand Junction, Durango,Trinidad, La Junta, Lamar and Burlington. Aldo Svaldi at the Post has the details.
Aldo Svaldi at the Denver Post says the paper is satisfied with its post-Rocky circulation numbers, but Michael Roberts at Westword says Svaldi’s article is “journalistically appalling.” One thing is for sure – it is going to take six months to a year for the Post to truly understand what percentage of Rocky subscribers it held on to. Any analysis now is like trying to project a pitcher’s ERA during the first inning of the first game.
First, the good news: The Denver Post is now the 11th largest newspaper in the U.S., thanks to Scripps’ decision to shutter the Rocky (and the JOA’s ability to automatically switch Rocky subscribers to the Post). The bad news? The Post is already down 17.4 percent compared total Rocky/Post subscribers, making it tough for the Post to maintain its goal of keeping 80 percent of Rocky subscribers.
Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal and Michael Roberts at Westword have examined the numbers and what they mean.
Filed under: Denver Post
The Denver Post profiles Cohn Marketing’s Jeff Cohn in its “Three Questions” feature.
KWGN/Channel 2, now known as “The Deuce,” has reshuffled its evening newscasts so it is not competing directly against sister station Fox31. The Deuce has moved its 9 p.m. newscast to 7 p.m., and made it more entertainment focused, in an effort to attract the 18-34 year old audience. Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post has the details.
Filed under: Denver Post
Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post examines the lives of local television news directors, and finds they are quickly adapting to new technologies such as Twitter, Skype and Facebook because their jobs are “less about responding to breaking news and more about inventing ways to connect with viewers.
The Denver Post’s business “section” is two pages today. You can subscribe to the Denver Business Journal here.
Filed under: Denver Business Journal, Denver Post, Twitter, Wall Street Journal
Last week, it was the Wall Street Journal that discovered Twitter. This weekend, it was the Denver Post. And the Denver Business Journal is now on Twitter: http://twitter.com/denbizjournal.
JohnstonWells founder Gwin Johnston is using her new-found free time to pen a series of open letters to Denver media figures. The first one is an ode to Denver Post publisher Dean Singleton, and I can’t wait for the others.
Bill Husted and Penny Parker are quickly becoming the Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez of the Denver Post. He hates her. And she hates him. But they’ve agreed to pretend to be civil and ”respect each other out of a ruined friendship.” Here’s betting one of them is gone in 12 months. Not surprisingly, it is Michael Roberts at Westword who has the details.
There is a fine line between being balanced and poking your advertisers in the eye. Given that Intrawest and Vail Resorts have both announced significant revenue declines and employee layoffs, I’m guessing they think this is the latter. Money quote:
“I started coming to Deer Valley in 1998,” says David Adamson. “I used to go to Colorado every year, but the snow in Utah is the best in the world, and the travel to and from L.A. is so easy.”
Part of the fallout of Scripps’ decision to shutter the Rocky Mountain News is that MediaNews will take full ownership of several Colorado newspapers, including the Boulder Daily Camera, the Colorado Daily and the Broomfield Enterprise. Alicia Wallace and Ryan Huff at the Boulder Daily Camera have the details.
Filed under: Denver Post, Journalism Moves, Penny Parker, Rocky Mountain News
The Denver Post wasted no time announcing which Rocky staff members it would hire (and, yes, Penny Parker is on the list, but not as a gossip columnist.)
David Milstead at the Rocky Mountain News reports that unions representing employees at the Denver Newspaper Agency have reached a tentative agreement on wage and benefit cuts that average 11.7 percent. According to Milstead, “Today’s tentative agreement includes salary reductions averaging 7 percent, 10 unpaid days off for most workers, the suspension of the 401(k) match, cuts in sick days and mileage reimbursements, and increases in health and dental premiums.” Layoffs are still a possibility if the agreement doesn’t yield the $18 million in concessions the DNA was seeking.
Michael Roberts at Westword has multiple sources telling him that the Denver Post has begun the process of cherry-picking Rocky Mountain News talent.
Citing budget cuts that forced his hand, Denver Post Editor Greg Moore announced the layoffs of six non-union employees: managing editor Gary Clark, political Web site editor Stephen Keating, assistant city editor Cynthia Pasquale, assistant design director Ingrid Muller, online director Mark Cardwell and systems editor Eric Strom. Michael Roberts at Westword has the details.
The most interesting predictions often are the ones that have a 2 percent chance of coming true. So in that spirit, let me offer this prediction: Scripps has analyzed the numbers and realized that it can outlast MediaNews Group if it is willing to suffer another tough six months. MediaNews Group will be forced to fold the Denver Post by summer, and the Rocky Mountain News will survive as the only major daily in Denver.
Will that prediction come true? Probably not. But if the economics of being the only newspaper in town work for MediaNews Group, they should also work for Scripps. And Scripps seems much better positioned financially to ride out a tough six months than MediaNews Group. We are just two days away from mid-February, which is a full month after Scripps initially implied a decision would be made about shutting down the Rocky, and there still has been no word on its fate.
It is hard to figure out which is in worse financial shape: the Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News or the Denver Newspaper Agency. Post publisher MediaNews Group often seems to be teetering on the brink of missing its debt payments, the Rocky is almost certain to be shut down, and now Jeff Smith at the Rocky reports that the DNA needs to cut about $35 million through union concessions, roughly double what had been reported previously.
Could a furlough program that MediaNews Group has instituted in California wind up sidelining some Denver Post reporters eventually? MediaNews is “requiring all nonunion employees who work at the company’s California newspapers to take one week of unpaid leave this quarter to help cut costs,” and a company spokesman says it is also considering requiring furloughs at its media properties outside California.
And now it gets interesting.
David Milstead at the Rocky Mountain News reports today that his paper’s parent company Scripps has accused The Denver Post and its publisher MediaNews Group of improperly borrowing “$13 million from their jointly owned operating agency to cover The Post’s newsroom payroll.” Rumors of MediaNews Group’s financial shaky footing have been around for months, and Scripps alleges MediaNews was forced to resort to the improper “loan” after the JOA’s banks tightened credit.
So now we know why Scripps has been silent since it announced its mid-January deadline for finding a buyer for the Rocky or shutting it down. And we also know why MediaNews Goup’s Dean Singleton has been so desperate in his efforts to ensure that the Rocky disappears. If the Rocky were to find a buyer, it might not be long before the Denver Post went under.
Update: Michael Roberts at Westword also blogged about Milstead’s article. Definitely worth reading.
That is how Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.’s Tom Clark described Colorado’s economic situation. Analysts predict the U.S. recession, which is already more than a year old, “could run another six to 12 months but spare Colorado its full wrath.” The Denver Post has the details.
Mid-January is shaping up to be a pivotal time in the history of Denver newspapers. Scripps will decide whether to shut down the Rocky Mountain News, and the Denver Newspaper Agency has issued an ultimatum to six unions to agree to $20 million in wage and benefit concessions by Jan. 16 or … (insert evil Dean Singleton laugh here)… “face even worse consequences.”
Many of us who worked in Denver a decade ago remember the fight former Denver Post reporter Kerri Smith waged against obesity and cancer. Sadly, Kerri lost that struggle this weekend. She was 48. Mike McPhee at the Post has the details.
Filed under: Denver Post, Economic News, MediaNews Group, Newspapers, Rocky Mountain News
A day after Moody’s downgraded MediaNews Group, citing its “substantial”risk of default, CEO Dean Singleton today asked unions representing the Denver Post and the Denver Newspaper Agency to “reopen their labor contracts immediately” in an effort to cut costs by $20 million. Jeff Smith at the Rocky Mountain News reported that Singleton would seek concessions of $2 million from the Post and $18 million from newspaper agency.
And that wasn’t the only bad news for MediaNews Group today. The Wall Street Journal reported that the MediaNews Group-owned Detroit News has joined the Gannett-owned Detroit Free Press in considering cutting home delivery of the papers to three days per week. The remaining four days would be available only via newsstands.
Moody’s downgraded MediaNews Group today, saying the owner of the Denver Post “faces a heightened risk of near-term default under the financial tests of its recently amended senior secured credit agreement as well as the refinancing risk posed by the December 2009 maturity of its revolving credit facility.” The Denver Business Journal has the details.
Michael Roberts at Westword looks beyond all the posturing and spin and finds that the economy and Denver Post Publisher Dean Singleton are conspiring to kill the Rocky Mountain News.
Before Dean Singleton engages in too much scheudenfraude about the Rocky’s plight, he might want to read this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, which notes that MediaNews Group is among several publishers that “are carrying heavy loads of debt given their fast-shrinking revenues.” The WSJ’s solution for MediaNews: a merger with fellow troubled publishers Freedom Communications and Lee Enterprises.
Former Denver Post business reporter Kimberly Johnson has moved to Associated Press, where she is covering the auto industry.
Bill and Penny are taking thinly veiled journalistic swings at one another over whether Earls restaurant will move into the Cherry Creek North space formerly occupied by Ocean.
Filed under: Associated Press, CNN, Denver Post, journalism, Newspapers, Rocky Mountain News
In October, the New York Times wrote about papers leaving the Associated Press because of its high price, and today the Times covers CNN’s attempt to cobble together an alternative to AP. Approximately 30 newspaper editors from across the country will visit Atlanta this week to hear the details, but there is no word on whether John Temple and Greg Moore will be two of them.
How many times have you tried to tell clients that no reporters care that they moved offices? JohnstonWells just made that a tougher argument.
Filed under: Denver Post
It would seem so.
It was 25 years ago today that former Denver Post columnist Dick Kreck coined the term “LoDo.” Bill Husted has the back story.
Filed under: Denver Post
Aldo Svaldi at the Denver Post gets some serious reporter street cred for writing an article about his paper’s circulation drop that has resulted in a VP from his publisher’s company writing a scathing letter to the editor. And how badly does the Post not want you to read Aldo’s piece? Click the link to the original story in the VP’s rebuttal and see where it takes you. Not to Aldo’s piece. And good luck finding the original story linked anywhere else on the Post’s Web site. Mark Harden at the DBJ and Fitz & Jen at Editor & Publisher have more details.
And the drumbeat continues. In the latest ABC numbers issued today, the Denver Post reported a weekday circulation drop of 6.5 percent to 210,585, while the Rocky Mountain News saw its weekday circulation numbers drop 6.6 percent to 210,281. Mark Harden at the DBJ has all the details.
If you are a Denver Post copyeditor or graphic artist, it may be time to give you union rep a quick buzz. Post publisher Dean Singleton told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association that papers should explore outsourcing domestically or internationally for nearly every aspect of their operations. He pointed to copyediting and design jobs that could easily be outsourced overseas, noting, “In today’s world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn’t matter.” USA Today has the details.
Is the Associated Press’ house of cards about to collapse? That should be a scary thought to the Denver Post considering that 70 percent of the articles in today’s front page/national section carried bylines from non-Post reporters.
The details of the CW2 layoffs are starting to emerge, and Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post reports that more than 25 staffers are being let go. Anchor Ernie Bjorkman, a fixture of Denver television news for 26 years, is the highest-profile employee to be let go, although he will remain on the air for the next three months.
UPDATE: And, gracious to the end, Fox 31′s Dennis Leonard (yes, the guy who discovered John Mayer, Maroon 5 and Five for Fighting) has wasted no time marginalizing Ernie Bjorkman. Here is Ernie’s CW2 bio prior to the layoff announcement, and here is the new-and-improved version.
Andy Vuong’s Denver Post article about reaction to a peace agreement between organized labor and business spent four times as many words identifying Sharon Linhart as it did quoting her:
“‘That’s great,’ said Sharon Linhart, managing partner at Linhart Public Relations.”
The Denver Post quotes Schenkein’s Leanna Clark in an article about the impact that raising the FDIC insurance caps would have on small businesses.
San Francisco State University estimates that 1/3 of employed Americans are in “marketing or marketing-related” jobs. And the Metro Denver Economic Development Council’s calculates that there are 1.46 million employees in the Denver metro area. Combine the two, and it means that metro Denver has nearly 500,000 people who are in marketing or marketing-related positions. A half-million. So why are the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News so indifferent about covering the business of marketing?
Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post looks behind the curtain at Colorado Public Radio and finds all the innovative, edgy programming that Coloradans don’t hear because CPR staffers are as bad as music radio executives when it comes to formula-driven programming.
New Fox31 GM Dennis Leonard tells the Denver Post’s Joanne Ostrow that, while at his previous station in Birmingham, Ala., he “broke a number of music acts who later went national: John Mayer, Maroon 5, Five for Fighting.”
Denver Post editor Greg Moore issued his quarterly memo to staffers reminding them that the Rocky Mountain News is a weak, failing newspaper that would certainly go away long before anything happened to the Post:
“It seems foolish to think The Post would disappear. The Rocky Mountain News declared itself a failing newspaper in 2000, and nothing has changed.”
Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal has taken a hard look at the latest ABC audit of the circulations of the local dailies and found that the Denver Post’s numbers aren’t quite as good as it might seem. The Post actually “trails the Rocky by about 6 percent in sales of full-price weekday copies,” but has been inflating its numbers with “sales of its discounted ‘electronic edition’ as well as copies distributed to hotel guests and sales to ‘third parties.’ “
Rocky Mountain News parent company E.W. Scripps Co. is taking a $874 million write-off “to account for the diminished value of its newspaper holdings. The write-off includes a $779 million noncash charge to reduce the value of goodwill and a $95 million reduction in the value of its investment in the Denver Newspaper Agency and Prairie Mountain Publishing.”
MediaNews CEO Dean “Shut the F&%@ Up, We’re Doing Fine” Singleton disclosed that the media company has sold the Connecticut Post and seven weekly newspapers to Hearst in an effort to “manage its balance sheet.” Singleton dismissed the move as business as usual (“This is not our first rodeo”), and insiders are speculating whether this is the first of several deals that will bring Hearst and MediaNews much closer together.
The only remaining question is whether Singleton will make Aldo Svaldi write an article tomorrow about what a shrewd move it is.
UPDATE: Aldo Svaldi’s article is here. Interestingly, Singleton says the biggest threat to newspapers isn’t the Internet, but rather an “old-fashioned recession” that is hurting ad revenues.
Filed under: Denver Business Journal, Denver Post, GBSM, Linhart, Rocky Mountain News, Schenkein, Story + Welch
Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal talks to various public relations executives in town about the rumors of a Post/News consolidation, and quotes perspectives from Schenkein’s Leanna Clark, Story + Welch’s Jeremy Story, GBSM’s Steven Silvers, Linhart’s Paul Raab and Cutter Communications’ Lisa Cutter.
Filed under: Denver Business Journal, Denver Post, Economic News, Rocky Mountain News
The Denver Post’s and Rocky Mountain News’ latest earnings report isn’t going to quell rumors that one of them will acquire the other and convert it to an online-only offering soon. The papers saw their Q2 earnings drop 78 percent –- from $6 million to $1.3 million — in Q2 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. A “slumping advertising market” is to blame, according to the Denver Business Journal, which also calculated that the two papers lost money during the quarter.
We posted earlier this year when former Denver Post columnist Jim Spencer left his gig in online journalism for the world of public relations. Now, word is that Jim still hasn’t come to grips with the career change.
The Denver Post will partner with the political Web site Politico to cover the Democratic National Convention. The terms of the agreement allow the Post to “publish at least several pages each day of Politico content in print during the convention weeks. Politico, meanwhile, will be able to sell ad space in the newspapers.” The St. Paul Pioneer Press, which like the Post is owned by MediaNews, has a similar agreement with Politico for the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities.
David Milstead, the smartest financial beat writer in town and someone who has skin in the game, acknowledges that Denver can’t support two newspapers and that Scripps and MediaNews Group need to start deciding what the staff of a combined, single newspaper/online property will look like.
Filed under: Democratic National Convention, Denver Post, Newspapers, Rocky Mountain News, Scripps
Rocky Mountain News parent company E.W. Scripps Co. officially separated into two companies: a “struggling” one holding its newspaper properties and a “more successful” one for its cable TV and online holdings. The rumor going around town all spring and summer has been that the Rocky will drop the printing presses and transition to a Web-only product following the DNC in August, but we bet that instead it will do what the Denver Post is doing –– slowly eliminating pages until the print product essentially serves only as an advertising vehicle to get people to the Web site.
